Distribución del Fondo

In the past, parents from the disadvantages communities such as the black community did not have a voice or were able to make decisions about education matters of their children; they were voiceless. After 1994, the democratic government created SASA (1996), with the purpose of implementing democratic principles within the South African communities and to correct the injustices of the past. In the new governance framework parents from disadvantaged communities are given more powers to decide on the issues of school governance and development. This includes shaping the future of their schools (governance) whereas the professionals were given more powers to manage day-to-day functioning of their schools (management). In the composition of the SGBs, parents are given majority representation over other components of the SGB so that the parents would have powers to influence the decisions of their children’s education.

The findings from the data collected indicated that parent SGB members and the broader parent community are not participating fully in supporting the school. It was noted that this was demonstrated by various behaviour, for example, the parent SGB members’ absence in most school activities such as, drawing up the school development planning and the development of policies. The broader parent community did not attend general meetings, not even supporting an initiative from the parent SGB members which was to fund-raise towards their children’s education. The researcher has also found that the learner representative was not participating in any of the SGB activities at the school.

The principal and SGB have realized that the school cannot function without “buy in” of all the school community participating in decision making about the development of school policies, planning and budgeting because no commitment would follow. The new governance school framework was created to give parents an opportunity to partner with the state so that they would add value during formulation and implementation of the educational policies at school and to gain ownership of their school. At the Secondary School level, the parent SGB members and broader parent community are still not adding value to the education of their children because the principal still has more powers to influence decisions made about education, governance and development issues at the school. SASA (1996) is the framework that provides guidance to the role and functions of the SGBs at the schools. It has stated clearly that the role of the school governing bodies at the school was to promote democracy in schools and the broader South African communities. In other words, the role of the democratic school governance was to encourage participation, consultation, co-operation and partnership in all features of democratic decision making in accordance with the South African Constitution and the South African Schools Act of 1996 (Mncube, 2005; SASA, 1996; RSA, 1996).

The purpose of democratic school governance is to create an opportunity for the school community (educators, parents, learners, non–educators and the broader community representatives) to build a sense of ownership of their school and take responsibility for what was happening at the school (Mncube, 2005). Karlsson’s (2002) findings indicate that democratization of the schooling system seemed not to succeed because all stakeholders of the school are represented since some schools did not have learner representative in their school governance structure.

Karlsson (2002) states that learner representatives in 1976, added value to the educational system of South Africa by changing Afrikaans as the medium of instruction into English after 1994, the adult SGB members had various concerns with learners being the part of the SGB as the adults felt that they could not be trained simultaneously with the children. Themane and

Mabasa (2002) found that black communities’ culture does not allow the child to voice his/her concerns as it would seem as if the child was disrespecting the adult and their input will not be taken as a valid point that could be used to improve their schools. Another problem faced with the learner governors was the time constraints because SGB meetings are normally held late and learners have to complete their school work.

This study concludes that the SGB at the school is faced with challenges based on the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the role of a democratic school governance of the public school which was to promote school community’s participation and representation of various stakeholders during decision making about the issues of the governance and development of their community school.

4.5.2.1. Quality of support from the stakeholders

The parent SGB members have to encourage participation, consultation and collective decision making with all the stakeholders of the school in order to increase the parental and community involvement at the school. The broader parent community should attend general meetings so that their views can be used to improve the culture of learning and teaching at the school. From the information studied the SGB members have realized that with the parental and community support, effective communication and building of a good relationship and trust their effective functions at the school will improve.

4.5.2.2. Quality of support from the principal

Findings of the research indicated that the role of school governance was to draw up a school plan that would guide and support day-to-day functioning of the whole school. Xaba (2006) has found that the SGBs are faced with challenges to draw up a plan that will effect change at the schools because the planning process requires technical skills and knowledge of developing a school development plan that will indicate the areas of improvement at their schools. From the

data collected there is an indication that the ineffectiveness of the SGB was caused by the poor planning for the whole school functionality which was caused by insufficient knowledge from both the SGB and management of the school. This resulted negatively to effective functioning and overall performance of the school.

Xaba (2006) points out that there are two important factors that contributed to the poor planning of the SGBs at schools. Firstly, the planning of the school activities was undertaken because the schools were require to submit their year plan to the district officials therefore the SGB would haphazardly draw up a plan. Xaba (2006) adds that the principal and SMT were supposed to lead and guide the plenary session but the management also lacked technical skills and knowledge for example, the parent SGB members. He concludes that the cause of this challenge was in relation to the promotion of the educators into the management positions. They were promoted based on the years in service rather than qualifications as educational managers. This study argues that the effective functioning of the SGB depends on the support and trust of the principal. This means that the lack of effective communication and transparency between the principal and other SGB members is caused by the lack of a proper relationship, that is to say there is an element of mistrust amongst the role players and that state of affairs would always be highly undesirable. This study concludes that the ineffectiveness of the SGB was caused by the misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the role of democratic governance at the school.

Findings indicated that lack of communication and transparency has contributed to the factors that affected the effectiveness of the SGB at the school. From the information, it was clear that the role of the principal has contributed to the abovementioned factors. The principal as an ex- officio member was accountable for communication problems regarding the day-to-day functioning of the school and as an accounting officer, was accountable for the school finances which meant that he needed to be more transparent about the cash flow of the school funds.The findings indicated that the principal was not fulfilling his role in accordance with SASA (1996) because he took advantage of the fact that the parent SGB members were illiterate

meaning they were lacking financial management capacity knowledge and skills, therefore no one would be able to question his decisions.

4.5.3. THE COMPETENCY OF THE SGB